Trump Orders Review of Education Policies to Strengthen Local Control

WASHINGTON — President Trump issued a sweeping review of federal education policies on Wednesday in an executive order to pinpoint areas where the government may be overstepping in shaping operations of local school systems.

The order requires Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s education secretary, to review, modify and possibly repeal any regulations and guidelines that are not consistent with federal law.

Mr. Trump described the order as “another critical step to restoring local control,” and one that fulfills one of his campaign promises.

“For too long, the federal government has imposed its will on state and local governments,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference to sign the order. “The result has been education that spends more, and achieves far, far, far less.”

The review will be conducted within 300 days, and its findings will be published in a public report. It aims to ensure local leaders will have the final say “about what happens in the classroom,” said Rob Goad, a senior Education Department official. Ms. DeVos is already empowered to rescind guidance and regulations, and has already done so, and any attempt at overturning laws would be subjected to a legal, regulatory process.

In an interview, Ms. DeVos called Mr. Trump’s order a “welcomed opportunity” and “a clear mandate to take that real hard look at what we’ve been doing at the department level that we shouldn’t be doing, and what ways we have overreached.”

She said Mr. Trump had already espoused “the importance of states and localities’ being able to address issues that are closest to them.”

“And when it comes to education, decisions made at local levels and at state levels are the best ones,” Ms. DeVos said.

The review will focus on K-12 policy, Mr. Goad said. It will be overseen by a regulatory task force headed by Robert Eitel, who was hired from the for-profit sector to serve as a senior counselor to Ms. DeVos. Mr. Eitel is a vocal critic of regulations in higher-education and K-12 policy, and his hiring was controversial.

A New York Times investigation found that before he took his post in the Education Department, Mr. Eitel spent 18 months as a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that ended with a settlement of more than $30 million over deceptive student lending.

Mr. Trump’s order was lauded by the Center for Education Reform, which advocates school-choice policies. In a statement, its founder, Jeanne Allen, said that conducting the review was “part and parcel of ensuring that education innovation, and opportunity, are able to take root throughout our various education sectors.”

“The process will also allow the public to learn just how much oversight occurs as a result of bureaucracy, not law, and pave the way for all schools to focus on outcomes, not compliance,” Ms. Allen said.

But other observers said the order stands to have little impact on large-scale reforms already underway, such as the Every Student Succeeds Act, and bedrock laws like the Individuals with Disabilities Act, which governs the education of special education students. And the Common Core standards, which neither Ms. DeVos nor Mr. Trump supports, were adopted by states at their own volition.

“The bottom line is that the law is still the law, and an executive order can’t override that,” said Kelly McManus, interim director of legislative affairs at the Education Trust, a Washington think tank.

Ms. McManus said the organization is also concerned about the Education Department’s watchdog role being diminished.

“The good states need the cover of the federal government, and the bad actors need to be pushed by the federal government,” she said.

Where the order could have the most impact is in the area of civil rights, in which the Obama administration issued a series of guidance documents.

One of the Trump administration’s first acts was rescinding earlier Education Department guidelines that urged states to allow transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

Wade Henderson, president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, called Mr. Trump’s order “dangerous and wrongheaded.”

“State and local primacy without federal oversight in America’s schools has never worked for all children and will not work now,” Mr. Henderson said in a scathing statement.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Orders Review of Education Policies to Bolster Local Control. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe